Focus
by linh cinder
Summary: Percy Jackson's the dead-beat, ADHD photographer who lives for the view outside his apartment window. Annabeth Chase is the architecture-enthusiast looking for an internship before college comes around. They don't have a lot in common, but they discover that there's one thing that makes them the same: they both need to focus on the important things in life. {Percabeth mortal!AU}


**Title:** _Focus_

**Summary:** Percy Jackson's the dead-beat, ADHD photographer who lives for the view outside his apartment window. Annabeth Chase is the architecture-enthusiast looking for an internship before college comes around. They don't have a lot in common, but they discover that there's one thing that makes them the same: they both need to focus on the important things in life. {Percabeth mortal!AU}_  
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**Disclaimer:** _Get out of my face Rick_

**A/N:** _So, uh, hi there. I just wanted to throw this thing out as a test run for a story idea I had. I don't know whether I should finish this or not. If you like it and think that I should continue, put it in a review. If you don't, that's fine. Idk why I'm even doing this. Sorry - I'm weird. :P_

_Enjoy my short mortal!AU [starring Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, and Grover Underwood]._

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_**Chapter 1  
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He never liked summer, to be honest.

For him, 'summer' always meant an influx of tourists flocking to the city. He couldn't go to Darby's without being swarmed, couldn't walk through Central Park without accidentally walking through a family photo, and couldn't go to Cafe Silvano on Wednesdays because it was overflowing with the paparazzi and stars and starlets that he couldn't pronounce the names of.

To avoid all of the bustle, Percy would back off of Fifth Avenue and venture the lesser known inner city streets, which were roads less traveled by. The only people who took those ways were the natives that knew them and the tourists that lost their way from the main streets. He was a native, so he spent a lot of time giving directions, and was no stranger to the rare and odd mixes of cobblestone and cement.

Today, he was walking one of those untrodden paths, his camera banging against his thigh and the sun beating down on him. He wiped the sweat off of his brow, mumbled something about lying meteorologists, and took a usual left down a shaded walkway that cut the length of Third Avenue down by a considerable size. Moments later, he emerged in a familiar roundabout, shrouded in sunlight and the smell of fresh flora and packed dirt.

The tiny patch of garden that protruded out of a small patch of earth before him did not fail to amaze him. Percy was actually surprised to see tomatoes, strawberries, and ripe bell peppers of varying shapes and sizes, a world of color growing in a city of none. He leaned down to pick one of the strawberries off of a vine, but was met with a smack on the back of his head that was more expected than not.

"You _know _you're not allowed to eat those," hissed Juniper as she knelt down with an empty basket, ready for fruit picking. "And besides, _I _get to pick the first one, so _there."_

She stuck her tongue out at him. He only grinned at her upturned nose, and glanced at the plants again. "When did you guys plant these? Last month?"

"At the end of school, remember?" said a voice, and Percy looked over his shoulder to see Grover carrying more baskets, holding one out to him. Percy took it, and Grover knelt down beside them, brimming with pride for the literal fruits of his labor. "You were there Percy, you should remember. We planted them right after graduation."

"Well, I know _that," _Percy gave an impatient wave as he turned his gaze away from the produce and onto Grover. "It just surprised me that it only took a few weeks for them to grow. I mean, _look_ at it - " He motioned to the garden, and the others turned to look, smiling. "It's like you put some crazy growth magic on it or something."

"Might as well have," said Juniper with a smile as she held up a bottle of plant food. "Miracle Gro works wonders."

He felt one of those tugs he got whenever her got inspiration, his finger hovering over a button on his camera. "Can I take a picture?"

"Sure!"

It took a few moments, but soon, Grover and his girlfriend Juniper were standing in front of their urban garden, smiling in satisfaction. Percy held up the camera, and his smile matched theirs. "Say 'I just planted a garden'!"

Grover scowled. "Who says _that - "_

The camera flashed. Percy went home with a picture of Juniper rolling her eyes and Grover in mid-sentence, and it still made him laugh then.

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"And this goes here, and..."

He pinned it in the tight space between Mount Rushmore and Disney World. "..._Voilà."_

There. Now the picture of Grover and Juniper could coincide happily with the other 308 photos.

Walking past the cork board that was clinging to the wall for dear life, Percy sat on his creaky old bed, whose springs groaned in protest. He turned around and slid open the window on the wall, and streaks of sunlight poured in from the sky, illuminated the particles in the air and his dreary apartment in golden light. He looked outside, and tried really hard not to, but ended up gawking at the breathtaking view that was the world beyond the window.

On the other side of the glass stood New York City, proud and tall, loud and brash. From his rented apartment on the top floor of the brown building on 36th Street, he felt like he could see the entire five boroughs and all of the people in them, like he could count every floor of the Empire State two times over and not get tired. He loved this view. He _lived _for this view. And all for a crappy five hundred bucks a month.

He leaned back, his camera already subconsciously in hand. He snapped a picture, and a good while later, after he had gone through the whole process of downloading the image onto his computer and printing it out on the right paper, he picked the big yellow tack out of the pile of plain white ones and stuck the picture on the cork board, right in the center, over a collection of Old Faithful's and White House's. Moments like this made him glad to be a photographer.

He went back to his window. Already having taken in the image of the city skyline, his eyes looked down at the street in front of the complex. There was the vendor, Jonas, whose merchandise was debatable, and there was the homeless guy, Marty, who had taken a liking to him because he was the only person who didn't tell him to go away.

Someone new was on the block. Percy eyed the top of the tourist's Yankees cap with passive eyes, but when the person turned around, he was seriously interested. It was a girl. A _beautiful _girl. A girl that made his hand try to find his camera without the aid of his eyes (which were more or less occupied with looking at the girl).

He found the camera, which he fumbled with for some unknown reason as he tried to find the right button. He took a picture, and forgot that the flash was on, but it didn't really matter in all of this sunlight. When he pulled away to look at the image, he was more than a little surprised at the outcome.

She had been looking at him. The moment he had taken the picture, she had looked up, and a pair of gray eyes burned holes into his green ones as he stared at the image of the beautiful blonde girl he had not-so-discretely taken from his apartment window.

He had to keep this. He felt the tug he got in his gut whenever he had inspiration, but for what this time, he didn't know.

Later in the day, Percy printed the picture and tacked it on the wall, not the cork board. Now she could gaze at him, among faded photos of his childhood and smiling photos of his friends. The tugging feeling was still there, and he couldn't stop it. He still didn't know why.

Maybe it was the ADHD, he didn't know, but for the longest time after that, he couldn't walk past the photo without a second glance, or eat without the feeling of someone's eyes on his back, or sleep without having dreams of gray eyes and hair as gold as the sun. He was going crazy, probably. Too much photography. Too little sleep.

Maybe the tugging feeling would go away after a couple of more weeks...or maybe, he really _was_ inspired.

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End file.
